Day three of the $2,000,000 ALGS Championship in Raleigh, North Carolina saw another 10 teams eliminated from contention today. Most of the better-known Apex Legends organizations made the grand finals, particularly those from North America, and teams like NRG and Furia looked primed for success in tomorrow’s finals.
The first match of the day in the winners bracket ended in classic fashion, in a duel between NRG and TSM, the two most winning organizations in the game. TSM clutched up, but that win had to serve as their highlight reel for the set of games, since they failed to reach the same heights for the rest of the stage.
By game three of the winners bracket, more legacy powerhouses of Apex were already looking shaky. Team Liquid lost three contests in a row to the strong Taiwanese squad DreamFire, and failed to secure a single point through the first three games of the winners bracket.
NRG controlled their territory perfectly in a hard-fought late game in game three. Furia also had a strong performance, with a top-five finish and 14 kills to their name. Spacestation, quiet during the championship so far, notched a win in game four, and rode consistent placements throughout the winners bracket to remain in the top three for most of the series.
At the midway point of the set, NRG were on top and looking in fine form. Team Liquid, who had struggled on Storm Point earlier, won the first game on World’s Edge. AD took a game, and then NRG outfought DarkZero to win game seven with a highlight-worthy Valkyrie play and miraculous Peacekeeper shots from in-game leader Sweet.
As the set closed, several top-tier teams were on the verge of having to fight for their lives in the losers bracket final. Cloud9, Fnatic, ZETA DIVISION, and OpTic were all in trouble. OpTic went out early in the final winners bracket game, sending them to losers to fight for survival. TSM held on a bit longer but also came up short. That left TSM, OpTic, Alliance and 100 Thieves as just some of the talented teams facing elimination in the eight-game losers bracket.
Instead, it was C9 and ZETA who sneaked into the finals, while Furia stormed their way to a second-place finish in the winners bracket thanks to a 28-point victory in the final game of the series, nestling between NRG in first and Spacestation in third.
In the second round of the losers bracket, 100 Thieves showed no signs they wanted to go home just yet by winning the first three games of the final elimination round of the tournament, demonstrating both their skill and the highly situational power of the Wattson and Newcastle combo.
Former playoff winners Acend also took a win, and TSM began to fight back from the threat of elimination with a win in game five. Over the last few games, 100 Thieves and OpTic pulled away from the field. But the gap between the teams facing elimination from the tournament narrowed.
Alliance, TSM, and SCARZ all needed strong performances in the final game to keep their championship hopes alive, and they all pulled it off, surviving into a tense endgame.
FA Kitties, the former Gambit roster, did not qualify for Sunday’s finals. Neither did fan-favorites Pulverex, who had been forced to play as a duo after issues with COVID, or Luminosity, whose substitute, Complexity’s Monsoon, shed tears after the team came up just short of qualification.
The 20 teams remaining in the tournament will compete in the Grand Finals tomorrow starting at 4pm CT.
